The blues is one of America's greatest musical treasures. A roots music form that
evolved out of African-American work songs, field hollers, spirituals, and country string ballads more
than a century ago, the blues is the foundation of virtually every major American music form born in the
20th century, including jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and hip-hop. As profound as the
blues has been to the national music experience, it has only occasionally entered the American classroom,
mostly through individual teachers who were committed blues fans and who created their own methods to
integrate the music into curricula. Read the essays What is the Blues? and
Understanding the 12-Bar Blues.